I have this obsession. It has always been with my "purpose in life," meaning my "calling" (can we say narcissistic?). I am constantly reevaluating what I should do with my life. Where most people leave the "what do I want to be when I grow up?" question behind them when they graduate college, I have been on an eternal quest to find my career path.
I believe that everyone was put on this earth with a purpose - an end in mind. There are secondary things as well, that we are purposed to do, and that come as companions to our purpose, walking with us through different phases of our lives. For instance, I believe it is my purpose to communicate with people in a way that they can understand through the medium of writing. I am passionate about unifying people, changing my world, helping to expand hearts and minds through education and perspective, helping people find love for each other. Maybe I will help one or two people in my lifetime see things differently and love more freely, and if that happens, I will have accomplished my purpose. But as I work to accomplish my purpose, there are companions to my purpose: Being a mother, for instance. I have not always been a mother, and someday, I will not be involved with raising children on a daily basis. But in being a mother, I can teach my children to love and communicate, and to not judge their fellow humans - in this way, I am accomplishing what I was made to do. I am not saying that being a mother is not the greatest calling, but I am saying that for most people, it is not the ONLY calling, and, again, for most people, believing that it IS the only purpose of their life will lead to nothing but frustration and despondency. Because being a Mother is a choice, it cannot be your primary purpose, only a role that you play during your life (albeit an important one).
Who are you? No, really. Who ARE you?
Your purpose goes beyond your career, beyond your education and vocation. It is intrinsically WHO YOU ARE. It is not what you were made to DO, it is who you were made to be. My purpose is to educate and write and communicate. My purpose is NOT to run a non-profit, or to speak to masses of people, or to be the best darn HR Director that Sonic has ever seen, although those can all be choices I make. It is not to perform delicate brain surgery, or track down criminals in foreign countries, or to paint murals on overpasses. My purpose is to communicate through writing, and because a writer is who I AM, actually, I find it hard to reconcile that as a reasonable or respectable occupation. For the simple fact that I need measurable success in order to feel successful. I need a promotion, I need a list of lives that have been saved, I need something tangible that says I have succeeded. Ah, but this is the fallacy of finding our purpose and allowing our lives to be driven by that purpose: we can do whatever we want to, make whatever choice we want in life, and pursue whatever career we desire, but unless we recognize what we were made for, we will live a life of constant frustration.
Some people claim that they don't know their purpose, but I would postulate that their purpose is not unknown to them as much as it is unaccepted by them. They want their purpose to be something recognizable and accomplishable. They want to have a set path. They want their purpose to be their career. And for a lucky few, that is the case. The rest of us are called to trying to accomplish our purpose in whatever place we are.
I am a writer and explorer (even though it may not appear from this blog that I am a very GOOD writer). I am not a writer because I "write good" though, I'm a writer because my purpose is to help people understand other's perspectives - it is in my nature. I can communicate in a way some can't, I'm not afraid to jump into the unknown, and I can relate to people in the written word. But "writer" has never been enough for me (or maybe it has always been too much for me). I feel like I should build something, or do something meaningful, and so I have searched my entire life to find my "purpose" because my purpose wasn't good enough for me - I wanted my purpose to be a career.
I would further postulate that when people begin to embrace their purpose, they find that their lives are much more and much less satisfactory. They are more satisfied because they finally are DOING what they are made to do. Throwing caution to the wind, abandoning yourself into your purpose, you walk out there on that ledge and discover that this is what you were MADE for!
...But the flip side is that once you embrace your purpose, you are forever ruined for the rest of the things in this world. Not to say that you can't be happy doing several things at once, but if you abandon your purpose in search of something "better" or "more appropriate" or "more meaningful" you will always be disappointed.
Abandoning who I am and who I was made to be - the elemental parts of myself that have nothing to do with personal choice - would be setting me up for failure. I must give myself permission to be who I am.
Expectations
Too many time women in particular have been given their purpose and their destiny by someone playing God. They have been told that they must grow up and go to business school and climb the corporate ladder. Or (more often) they must marry and have children and their purpose is to be a good wife and mother. They are not given permission to dream.
Too many times in American society, women create a checklist of expectations. Mostly self-imposed, yes, but trying to live up to society’s expectations of getting degrees, climbing the corporate ladder, doing something meaningful in our community, and at the same time, balancing a child on each hip and singlehandedly keeping our families strong and healthy. As a woman, we have all walked into the world and have achieved some level of success, in some area of our lives. But, that checklist we created? Didn’t have to do with OUR dreams and desires, it had to do with what the people around us expected, and with what society in general expected.
For myself, I was balancing a corporate career, being single mom to three great kids, and completing my degree. I felt that in my effort to succeed in every area of my life, I was inadvertently failing at each one. There finally came a point when I said, “What am I doing with my life? I’m not happy! To heck with the checklist, I’m going to dream!” Almost immediately the question arose: “What DO I want? What ARE my dreams?” And when I gave myself permission to ask those questions – and ANSWER them – I began to, at last, feel that I had begun to succeed.
I am here today giving YOU permission to dream. I am giving you permission to examine your purpose outside of the light of the church, the religion you were brought up in, the family you are a part of, the career path you have chosen. I give you permission to ask the question - WHAT IS MY PURPOSE? But you must give yourself permission to hear the answer.
Your purpose goes beyond your career, beyond your education and vocation. It is intrinsically WHO YOU ARE. It is not what you were made to DO, it is who you were made to be. My purpose is to educate and write and communicate. My purpose is NOT to run a non-profit, or to speak to masses of people, or to be the best darn HR Director that Sonic has ever seen, although those can all be choices I make. It is not to perform delicate brain surgery, or track down criminals in foreign countries, or to paint murals on overpasses. My purpose is to communicate through writing, and because a writer is who I AM, actually, I find it hard to reconcile that as a reasonable or respectable occupation. For the simple fact that I need measurable success in order to feel successful. I need a promotion, I need a list of lives that have been saved, I need something tangible that says I have succeeded. Ah, but this is the fallacy of finding our purpose and allowing our lives to be driven by that purpose: we can do whatever we want to, make whatever choice we want in life, and pursue whatever career we desire, but unless we recognize what we were made for, we will live a life of constant frustration.
Some people claim that they don't know their purpose, but I would postulate that their purpose is not unknown to them as much as it is unaccepted by them. They want their purpose to be something recognizable and accomplishable. They want to have a set path. They want their purpose to be their career. And for a lucky few, that is the case. The rest of us are called to trying to accomplish our purpose in whatever place we are.
I am a writer and explorer (even though it may not appear from this blog that I am a very GOOD writer). I am not a writer because I "write good" though, I'm a writer because my purpose is to help people understand other's perspectives - it is in my nature. I can communicate in a way some can't, I'm not afraid to jump into the unknown, and I can relate to people in the written word. But "writer" has never been enough for me (or maybe it has always been too much for me). I feel like I should build something, or do something meaningful, and so I have searched my entire life to find my "purpose" because my purpose wasn't good enough for me - I wanted my purpose to be a career.
I would further postulate that when people begin to embrace their purpose, they find that their lives are much more and much less satisfactory. They are more satisfied because they finally are DOING what they are made to do. Throwing caution to the wind, abandoning yourself into your purpose, you walk out there on that ledge and discover that this is what you were MADE for!
...But the flip side is that once you embrace your purpose, you are forever ruined for the rest of the things in this world. Not to say that you can't be happy doing several things at once, but if you abandon your purpose in search of something "better" or "more appropriate" or "more meaningful" you will always be disappointed.
Abandoning who I am and who I was made to be - the elemental parts of myself that have nothing to do with personal choice - would be setting me up for failure. I must give myself permission to be who I am.
Expectations
Too many time women in particular have been given their purpose and their destiny by someone playing God. They have been told that they must grow up and go to business school and climb the corporate ladder. Or (more often) they must marry and have children and their purpose is to be a good wife and mother. They are not given permission to dream.
Too many times in American society, women create a checklist of expectations. Mostly self-imposed, yes, but trying to live up to society’s expectations of getting degrees, climbing the corporate ladder, doing something meaningful in our community, and at the same time, balancing a child on each hip and singlehandedly keeping our families strong and healthy. As a woman, we have all walked into the world and have achieved some level of success, in some area of our lives. But, that checklist we created? Didn’t have to do with OUR dreams and desires, it had to do with what the people around us expected, and with what society in general expected.
For myself, I was balancing a corporate career, being single mom to three great kids, and completing my degree. I felt that in my effort to succeed in every area of my life, I was inadvertently failing at each one. There finally came a point when I said, “What am I doing with my life? I’m not happy! To heck with the checklist, I’m going to dream!” Almost immediately the question arose: “What DO I want? What ARE my dreams?” And when I gave myself permission to ask those questions – and ANSWER them – I began to, at last, feel that I had begun to succeed.
I am here today giving YOU permission to dream. I am giving you permission to examine your purpose outside of the light of the church, the religion you were brought up in, the family you are a part of, the career path you have chosen. I give you permission to ask the question - WHAT IS MY PURPOSE? But you must give yourself permission to hear the answer.
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